


Fabrials Bind

by squirenonny



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: 31 Days of Sadfic, Alive!Tien AU, Big Hero 6 Plot Lift, CFSWF, Gen, WoR spoilers, fire tw, practically nonexistent romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their parents' death, Kaladin and Tien are taken in by the Kholins. Instead of fighting battles and running bridges, they study medicine and fabrials in the stillness of the Palanaeum... But a Desolation is coming, and the Radiants are not prepared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Artifabrian

**Author's Note:**

> This is a plot-lift crossover, meaning the story (loosely) follows the plot of BH6, but still stands on its own as a SA fic.

There was something captivating about the Kharbranth underworld, and not the things that drew most men. Not the women in clinging dresses, scandalous imitations of a havah, their safehands covered by the thinnest of gloves. Not the howls of axehounds and human shouts drifting out from cellars and shadowed alleys. Certainly not the sellers of drugs and weapons—almost impossible to pick out unless they were with a client.

No. If that was all the underworld had to offer, Tien would have given it a wide berth. _Gladly._ It was all he could do not to let his terror show on his face as he marched, head down and hand on the flap of his carrysack, through suspicious clusters that stood ready to riot or flee at the slightest provocation.

But there was something else, if he could force himself through the stormwall of furtive looks and glaring Stormlight. No one here trusted the rest enough to leave more than a few diamond marks in the lamps, but someone had designed a rig of mirrors and white panels—and possibly some sort of fabrial—that stretched the dim illumination across the street.

It had been that rig, and Tien’s curiosity about whatever hidden workings it may or may not have (surely a few mirrors couldn’t make the lamp so much brighter!), that had introduced him to the underworld. He still blushed thinking of that night, of his guilt and terror at keeping company with criminals.

Neither guilt nor terror had faded, even now, but the fabrial merchant’s ever-changing stock helped dull the edge.

Tien was no great artifabrian. Not like Navani Kholin. Not like her stepson Renarin, who knew the theories forwards and back even if he didn’t build anything himself. The things Tien made were pretty, sometimes clever, but ultimately useless. It was like carving wood, just a bigger challenge.

And more expensive.

Tien couldn’t afford his self-indulgent hobby, not at the prices Kharbranth merchants—the legitimate ones—charged. The metal casings alone would have cost his monthly stipend and then some, never mind gemstones to power his creations.

He wouldn’t go to Kaladin for the money, though his brother would never say no to even a frivolous request. He _certainly_ couldn’t ask the Kholins to pay for it.

If he didn’t want to give it up, the black market was his only option. Sure, some of the parts were stolen, probably. (He didn’t ask, and the merchant wasn’t telling.) Some were shoddy quality, too, but Tien wasn’t making anything that would be dangerous if it failed. Mostly, though, the people here charged less simply because in the black market there were no taxes. Not the most honorable of practices, but it wasn’t really _hurting_ anyone.

Besides, Tien had become rather good friends with Lmar, the man who ran the best fabrial shop. Sometimes Tien came to see the Thaylen man even when he didn’t need any parts.

Tien wasn’t yet halfway to Lmar’s shop when a hand closed on the collar of his shirt. The image of a backstreet tough followed close on the heels of his ever-present fear of the King’s Guards—just because _Tien_ wasn’t breaking any laws didn’t mean there wasn’t enough going on at night to attract the attention of the Guard.

Thrashing, Tien kicked blindly backward, eyes darting from the mouth of an alley to an open shop door to the dark windows of a decrepit tenement.

His heel found flesh. The man grunted, staggered. Tien’s collar drew tight against his throat.

“Storms, Tien!” The voice was a hoarse whisper, taut with pain—or anger—or maybe just a healthy regard for the glowers snaking their way.

Tien stopped fighting when he recognized the voice, but part of him still wanted to run. From guilt this time, not fear.

“Sorry, Kaladin.”

Kaladin released his hold on Tien’s shirt, and, rubbing his neck, Tien let himself be turned around.

The scowl Kaladin wore was no deeper than usual, but there was an edge like a Shardblade in his unblinking gaze. “What are you doing here?”

Tien tried to meet that gaze levelly. It really wasn’t fair that his brother was so storming tall. Tien wasn’t exactly short, not anymore, but Kaladin still had several inches on him. Enough to loom, when he wanted to.

“I just needed some parts,” Tien muttered.

Kaladin’s scowl, somehow, grew even darker. “Aunt Navani has anything you could possibly need. If she doesn’t, she could get it for you. _Legally_.”

Ducking his head, Tien bit his lip. “She’s done enough.”

With a sigh that sparked a new wind of shame in Tien, Kaladin ran a hand through his hair. It wasn’t that Tien disliked Navani, or that he was ungrateful. If not for her and Dalinar, her second husband, Tien and Kaladin would have had nowhere to go after their parents’ accident. Kaladin would have had to leave his studies, give up on being a real, licensed surgeon, just to keep a roof over Tien’s head.

So Tien _was_ grateful—very much so—to “Aunt Navani.” He just wasn’t as comfortable living with lighteyes as Kaladin. Navani could say Tien and Kaladin’s presence had helped after Dalinar’s passing all she wanted. Tien still felt like he should have done more to repay her. He couldn’t ask for any more charity.

“So, what, you want her to bail you out of jail?” Kaladin asked. “I’m going to go out in a highstorm here and say that would be worse than giving you a few broams.”

“I wasn’t planning on getting _caught_.” Tien realized he was pouting and covered it with a sniff. “I’m eighteen, _Kal_. I can take care of myself.”

Kaladin gave him a flat look and dragged him by the arm away from Lmar’s shop. “We’re going home. No arguing,” he added as Tien opened his mouth, “or I’ll Lash you to your bed when we get there.”

Tien snapped his mouth shut and trailed after his brother on the long hike home.

* * *

An hour later, Tien crawled out his bedroom window on the third story of the sprawling mansion the Kholins rented in Kharbranth. Too high to jump down—Kaladin probably loved that—but tucked right underneath the roof’s stormward side.

Tien curled his fingers around the eaves, which hung a good two feet out from his window, then swung forward. His momentum carried his feet up onto the roof and from there it was a matter of a well-practiced twist to get him the rest of the way up.

There was no real need for the roof to have a stormward and a leeward slope. Few did down here in Kharbranth’s lait, but this mansion sat high enough to catch the occasional stiff stormwind. Tien balanced at the peak, legs stretched out down the nearly vertical leeward slant.

The light of the three moons illuminated the rocky walls surrounding Kharbranth. Five years ago, when he’d first come to the city with his parents and his brother, those walls had captivated him—looming, striated stone with footpaths to lookout points and caves and quiet parks. He’d collected a number of small rocks from hikes in those days, though he hadn’t left the city streets since his parents’ deaths.

Five years ago, this city had been an adventure, had been freedom itself. Now it felt stifling.

Kaladin appeared beside him without a sound, glowing faintly with Stormlight. His spren was a streak of light on the wind that Tien could only see from the corner of his eye. If he looked at her head-on, she vanished.

“Waiting for me to fall asleep?” Kaladin asked, ruffling Tien’s hair.

Flushing, Tien ducked out of his brother’s reach and ran his fingers through the nest Kaladin had made of his hair. Storming brother. It didn’t help that Kaladin was right. Before he’d come up here to watch the city, Tien had been trying to decide how long he had to wait before sneaking out again.

“There goes that plan.” He didn’t mean for Kaladin to hear, but he did, and he laughed.

“I’m your brother, Tien. I can practically read your mind.”

Tien punched him in the shoulder. Lightly, though he could hit Kaladin as hard as he wanted and it wouldn’t make a difference. Storming Radiants.

“Tien…” Kaladin hesitated, resting his hand on Tien’s shoulder. “Why _were_ you down there?”

“I don’t know.”

Kaladin’s eyes flickered to the side—to Syl, probably—and he frowned. He turned back to Tien, ducking his head until he caught Tien’s gaze. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Of course he knew that, in theory. It was just that “anything” wasn’t usually this embarrassing. “I just. I don’t know, Kaladin. I can’t stand the sight of blood, which means I can be a surgeon _or_ a soldier.” Kaladin’s grip on his shoulder tightened briefly at the mention of soldiers. There had been a close call five years ago, when Kaladin caught wind of Roshone’s plan to force Tien into the army. Their family had fled to Kharbranth before that happened, but Kaladin was still sensitive about it.

“You don’t have to be a surgeon, Tien.” Kaladin kept his voice gentle, though there was a tightness around his eyes that made Tien’s heart clench.

“I know.” Tien felt in his pocket for a stone with a strangely jagged edge that he’d found on his way to the fabrial shop. It was broken rocks that caught his eye these days. Had Kaladin noticed? “But Father helped so many people, and you’re going to take up where he left off, and I… I want to help people, too.”

Kaladin put his arm around Tien’s shoulder and pulled him close. For just a moment, Tien resisted, then he sighed and leaned into his brother.

“I want to help, but the only things I like are art and fabrials, and I can’t do either of those.”

“You could be an ardent,” Kaladin said. “No one would care then, and you’d have all the supplies you wanted. Storms! You could probably walk into those shady shops of yours and claim what you need in the name of the Almighty.”

Despite himself, Tien laughed, the sound filling the empty night air. “I’m pretty sure that’s heresy, Kal.”

“Yeah? Well, so is me being a Radiant, and you haven’t got a problem with that.”

Tien shook his head, but he was still smiling as Kaladin squeezed him tighter. “I still don’t want to join the ardentia. It’s…” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s not for me.”

Kaladin turned, eyes tracking Syl through the air. He raised an eyebrow, lips twitching. “That’s actually not a bad idea.” He paused, then laughed. “Of course, sorry.”

Tien watched him, smiling vaguely. Almost two years now, and he still wasn’t entirely used to his brother talking to thin air. Syl had showed up a few months after their parents’ deaths, and Tien had seen the change in Kaladin. He’d blamed himself for their accident—normally Kaladin would have been the one to run out for supplies, but he’d stayed late that day at the Academy to talk with Jasnah’s ward, Shallan Davar.

He’d been even more reluctant to move in with the Kholins than Tien, back then. Tien had helped him as much as he could, Tien and Shallan. Renarin and his brother Adolin had hovered like wounded skyeels, unsure what they could do or whether Kaladin would even accept their help. Mostly, it had been Syl who helped Kaladin heal.

Kaladin stood abruptly, pulling on Tien’s arm and Lashing him so he felt like the roof had dropped out from under him. “Come on,” he said as Tien latched onto his arm. “There’s something I want to show you.”

* * *

“The Palanaeum?” Tien asked, gaping at the towering double doors. “In the _middle of the night_?”

Kaladin chuckled. “Clearly you haven’t spent enough time around scholars. It’s still early, by Palanaeum time.”

Tien gave him a doubtful look, but he supposed Kaladin would know. Between his own studies and his friendship with Shallan (and by extension, Jasnah), Kaladin was enough of a scholar that Tien had heard people calling him an ardent just to make things less uncomfortable.

Honestly, at this point, they might be less offended if they knew he was a Radiant. At least that involved fighting, a solidly masculine art.

Kaladin presented a pass to the attendant—all the students at the academy had them, even the men who were more likely to give it to a wife or sister who would fetch books to read to them. With as quickly as the attendant waved them through, Tien suspected Kaladin came here often.

What surprised him was that the woman didn’t ask if he needed a reader or a scribe. Maybe they had a routine for that, too?

Tien stopped at the sight of the vast, open space, the spiraling alcoves stretching up into the stone. True to Kaladin’s word, quite a number of them were occupied, tiny bubbles of Stormlight like a gathering of multicolored lifespren.

Kaladin waited for Tien to pick his jaw up off the floor, then led him to a lift, where a Parshman porter hauled them up to the upper floors—Tien lost interest in counting, too busy stooping to watch women in fine dresses and ardents with shaved heads and parshmen carrying stacks of books. It was fascinating, enticing, but Tien still felt like an intruder. Aside from the ardents and the parshmen, he and Kaladin were the only men to be seen.

_How_ was Kaladin so relaxed, leaning back against the lift’s railing as the floors flashed past?

When they finally stopped, Kaladin led him out into the corridor. They passed a lighteyed woman and her cluster of clerks, who nodded curtly. Unnerved by his presence, perhaps, but not surprised.

“Are you sure _you’re_ not an ardent?” Tien asked, scurrying to catch up with Kaladin.

Kaladin grinned. “Why bother? Being a ward of the Kholins gives you all the same benefits with none of the headache.”

“Then why were you telling _me_ to be an ardent?”

He only laughed. They reached a door that to Tien looked just the same as all the other doors lining the corridor. “In here,” said Kaladin.

They stepped out into an alcove larger than the ones lower down. Three tables, two piled with books, a third with heaps of metal parts and gemstones, crowded the center of the space, half a dozen chairs at the railing holding the overflow. Jasnah and Shallan huddled together over one of the books, speaking in low voices; Renarin turned over a gutted fabrial a few feet away.

And by the door, lounging in a chair that looked ready to buckle beneath him, was Adolin, wearing…

“Shardplate?” Kaladin asked. “Really, princeling, in a library? Is your masculinity that fragile?”

Adolin grinned. “I just want to be prepared. All these fabrials—what happens if they start feeding off each other and turn into Voidbringers?”

“That’s not how it works,” Shallan muttered, not looking up from her notes. Renarin spared his brother a wry smile as Adolin winked at Tien.

“He likes to annoy them,” Kaladin said, waving Tien over to Renarin’s table. “You should see him when he really gets going.” Adolin’s grin widened, and Jasnah flicked a finger in Kaladin’s direction.

“ _Don’t_ encourage him.”

Tien sat numbly, eyeing the parts arrayed before him. Enough to stock Lmar’s shop for a week, maybe even longer. A few pieces of metal were scratched and dented, a few gemstones cracked or dun, but those didn’t begin to compare to the rest.

Spinning his chair around, Kaladin sat and leaned back. He took in Stormlight from the nearby gems, Lashing the chair somehow so it stayed balanced on just one leg.

“Kaladin,” Tien hissed, shooting a nervous glance at Shallan. The Kholins all knew about Kaladin’s Surgebinding, but—

“Don’t worry about it, Tien.” Shallan set her pen down, blowing on a page full of fresh notes, and smiled at him. “I’m a Radiant, too.”

“What?”

“I know.” Kaladin Lashed a dun sphere her way and, frowning, she snatched it out of the air. “Four years I’ve known her. Four! And she didn’t tell me until last month.”

“You didn’t tell me either, Gloomblessed.”

Kaladin widened his eyes. “Me? I’ve only been a Radiant for two years. You two—” He gestured broadly toward Jasnah, who seemed intent on tuning them all out “—have been lying to me from the day we met.”

Tien stared at Shallan, open-mouthed. It had been enough of a surprise when, a year earlier, Tien had happened to notice a damaged connection on Jasnah’s Soulcaster. It should have kept the fabrial from working, but before Tien had been able to tell her, she’d Soulcast a boulder to Vapor before his very eyes.

That discovery had led to more—not only was Jasnah a Radiant, but so was Dalinar. Or so Jasnah claimed. Dalinar had died before meeting his spren. Shortly after that disaster, half a year ago now, Renarin had met Glys.

And now Shallan.

Five Radiants in one place. Dalinar had said a storm was coming. Jasnah’s research and Renarin’s visions agreed. Tien had always been dubious—the closest thing to a Desolation he’d seen was the Vengeance Pact and the war on the Shattered Plains, but that had fizzled out almost as soon as it began. There was a small force left beyond the Unclaimed Hills, and advance guard to warn if the Parshendi ever ventured beyond the Shattered Plains, but that hardly made for a Desolation.

But now Shallan was a Radiant, too? Tien blew out a long breath.

“Intimidating, right?” Adolin clapped Tien on the back. It should have knocked the breath out of him with Plate-augmented strength, but Adolin was the best duelist in all the Vorin Kingdoms. He practically lived in his armor, and his gesture held no more force than Kaladin’s.

He even ruffled Tien’s hair the same way, with no more pressure and no less like Tien was still twelve. Never mind that Adolin hadn’t met Tien until he was sixteen. Tien scowled at him.

Adolin laughed. “You and me are the only normal people here, kid.”

Renarin caught Kaladin’s eye and made some gesture under the table that made Kaladin burst out laughing.

“What?” Adolin looked from one to the other suspiciously.

"Don't worry about it, princeling." Swallowing his laughter, Kaladin let his chair drop back onto all four legs. “Anyway. This is what I wanted you to see, Tien. Instead of sneaking out every night, you might think about coming here. Renarin helps me study for my classes, when he’s not building fabrials. Shallan draws, mostly.”

“I do not!” She paused, flipping over a page with margins darkened by doodles. Shallan flushed, pointedly avoiding Jasnah’s accusatory stare. To Tien, she said, “I’m researching Voidbringers and Radiants with Jasnah, but I’m also trying to figure out how Soulcasters—the fabrials—work. _When_ I draw,” she added for Kaladin’s benefit, “it’s to practice my illusions.”

She demonstrated, sketching something on a fresh piece of paper, then taking in Stormlight. Tien blinked, and a stranger sat in Shallan’s place.

“Pretty cool, right?” she said, her voice unchanged. It was surreal, hearing it come from a black-haired, darkeyed woman in her middle years. All Tien could do was nod.

Kaladin rolled his eyes. “Jasnah’s studying…other ancient fabrials.”

Jasnah’s eyes flickered up, from Kaladin to Renarin to Adolin. She looked ready to say something, but returned to her studies without a word.

“As for Adolin,” Kaladin went on, “he’s just here to complain about not getting to fight in duels every day. And to distract the rest of us.”

“It’s so _boring_ being the best,” Adolin said, and almost managed to keep a straight face. Almost, except that Kaladin gave him the most scathing look Tien had ever seen. “I don’t know what you expect, sunshine. Everyone I know who doesn’t hate me finds dusty books and broken fabrials the most _fascinating_ things in existence. I’ve got to keep you grounded.”

Kaladin snorted.

Chuckling, Adolin nudged Tien. “You’re here to help me, right?”

“Keep dreaming, princeling.” Kaladin swatted Adolin away, then looped his arm around Tien’s shoulders. “So. Glad I brought you here?”

Tien didn’t even try to hide his grin.

* * *

Every day for the next month Tien met Kaladin at the university after his last lesson, and they walked together to the Palanaeum. The others didn’t all come every day—Adolin had duels, Jansah political duties. Shallan took free days on occasion to sketch at the docks or in the palace gardens.

Still, Tien spent more time with Kaladin and his friends—their friends—than he did at home or out in the city. Renarin was thrilled to have someone to teach about fabrials. And he knew a lot, far more than Tien. Kaladin feigned offense when he had to bully Adolin into quizzing him on anatomy, but he couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face.

Some nights it was past midnight before Tien realized how long he’d been there. Some nights he outlasted even Kaladin, especially when his brother had an exam the next day. Often it came down to Tien and Renarin and Jasnah, each silently absorbed in their work.

It was easier, in those quiet hours. Shallan and Adolin were loud and lively and had a way of drawing eyes to them. Stick Kaladin in the mix and it was a wonder anything got done.

So Tien saved his project for when they were away.

Settling a sapphire into place, Tien touched Renarin’s hand to draw his attention. Renarin looked up from the painrial he’d been dismantling. That was his favorite way to study fabrial theory, Tien had learned: taking apart fabrials and putting them back together. He usually let Tien reassemble them now, or else use their parts for his project.

“I think I have it this time,” Tien said, sliding the fabrial across the table to Renarin. “What do you think?”

Tien bit his lip and bounced in his seat to keep from talking while Renarin looked the fabrial over. Jasnah lifted her eyes from her book until Tien stilled. Once she’d gone back to reading, though, he started up again.

Truth was, Tien had been thinking about a fabrial like this for a long time. Not quite since he’d started tinkering, but close. It had seemed impossible. It _was_ impossible, without Renarin’s help. Tien wasn’t nearly up to the level of theory it took.

He was barely up to _making_ the thing Renarin had designed. His first attempt had torn itself apart. He’d dismantled the second after three failed tries to fix the overheating problem. (On the bright side, it had given Renarin a chance to practice his Regrowth.)

By the time Tien reached his sixth prototype, he was actually relieved when its only problem was that it wouldn’t activate.

They’d kept on, though, and Tien had added some of the shattered gems to his rock collection as trophies. Just a few; keeping them all would have been depressing.

“It looks good,” Renarin said. He passed the fabrial on to Jasnah, who gave it another, quicker look. She was no artifabrian, but her mother had taught her a good deal about fabrial safety, if only accidentally.

She handed it back to Tien, then shut her book and set it aside. “Shall we test it?”

* * *

“Kaladin.”

Tien stretched down to poke Kaladin’s shoulder.

“Kaladin, wake up.”

Kaladin swatted at the air beside his bed and rolled over, muttering incoherently. The room was dark except for the faint light of the moons through the open window—Kaladin always slept with an open window. He would have done it in a highstorm except that Navani had caught him at it once and put an end to it.

Belatedly, Tien realized that the sky was just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. He’d been so excited by his fabrial actually working that he hadn’t realized the time. Maybe he should have waited to show Kaladin. Jasnah and Renarin had trudged off to bed as soon as they got home.

Tien was too excited for sleep.

“Kaladin,” he hissed again.

Suddenly there was a small, floating blue girl hovering under his nose. “ _How_ are you _doing_ that?” Her form misted, and a streak of whitish light zipped down to twine around his ankles.

Or rather, she zipped _up_ to where his feet were planted on the ceiling.

Tien grinned—even more widely when Syl returned to her human form to gape at him. It was rare for her to show herself to anyone, even Tien. She must have been _really_ curious. It was nice to know _someone_ appreciated his fabrial.

“Kaladin!” Syl called. She streaked down to him. “Kaladin, wake up! You have to see this.”

He swatted the air again, his hand passing through Syl. She shivered, then tugged on one of his hairs.

“Up!”

Groaning, Kaladin rolled over, draping his arm over his eyes. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I really don’t,” Tien said. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not. So what’s the—huh?” Kaladin let his arm fall and lay blinking up at Tien. His brow creased, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found his voice. “Did I… I didn’t know I could Surgebind in my sleep.”

“You can’t,” said Syl. She peered up at Tien, hands on her hips. “I don’t think you can.”

“It wasn’t you.” Tien crossed his arms in what he hoped was a suave and casual gesture that oh, by the way, just happened to show off the fabrial wrapped around his hand and forearm.

Suave and casual wasn’t exactly Tien’s strong point—that was Adolin, if anyone—but Kaladin saw the fabrial anyway, and sat up so fast he nearly knocked heads with Tien. Gemstones glowed faintly inside the silvery case—not enough to illuminate the room, but enough that the fabrial glowed blue at the seams.

“ _You--_?” Kaladin grabbed Tien’s arm and yanked it down to squint at the fabrial.

Tien had to stand on his toes to keep Kaladin from pulling his arm out of its socket. “Me and Renarin.”

Syl alighted on the other end of the fabrial, bending at the waist like she was studying the fabrial, though her eyes kept darting to Kaladin.

Kaladin looked up at Tien, evidently speechless. But there was awe and pride enough in his eyes for ten hours of talking, and he Lashed himself to the ceiling so he could pull Tien into a hug and ruffle his hair.

Speechless, Tien decided, was good.

* * *

After that neither of them could think of sleep. Kaladin had a hundred questions and Syl wanted Tien to demonstrate as many times.

“We haven’t figured out the horizontal yet,” he confessed as he set the fabrial to a half Lashing and hovered in the center of the room. “So it’s just straight up and down for now. We’re working on it.” He spun slowly, drifting toward the window. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that trying to correct himself in midair was less than useless; he’d just end up writing uselessly.

Instead, he adjusted the settings and drifted down toward the ground. He landed on light feet, righted himself, then became weightless again. This time he drifted _without_ spinning. That was something.

“You make this look so easy,” he muttered.

Laughing, Kaladin joined Tien in the air, pulling him to a stop. “I’ve also been doing this more than six hours.”

“That’s quite something,” said a new voice from the door.

Freezing cold flooded Tien’s veins. He fumbled with the controls and dropped to the ground a split second behind Kaladin. Syl hid herself from Tien’s sight.

Brightlord Meridas Amaram was a tall man, sharply dressed with a handsome face. Tien didn’t know him well, but he knew that he was an old friend of the Kholins. He’d been some high-ranking officer in the army, but had taken a leave after Dalinar’s accident to help with the memorial service.

Jasnah resented his presence—then and the handful of times he’d returned since—and Renarin was indifferent at best, but Adolin… Well, Tien would have called it hero-worship if it hadn’t involved quite so much beating each other up on the training grounds. According to Kaladin, Amaram was the only person with whom Adolin could talk freely about his father.

Even Adolin had never told Amaram about the Radiants in the family, though. Kaladin’s eyes widened fractionally, every muscle going taut. He opened his mouth—

“You think?” Tien blurted before his brother could say anything. Kaladin was great at a lot of things, but lying wasn’t one. Tien put on his best smile and held out his arm. The fabrial still glowed with Stormlight. “Renarin and I made it.”

Amaram stepped into the room, hand reaching toward the fabrial. “May I?”

Tien deactivated the fabrial, then pulled it off and handed it over to Amaram. Kaladin hovered at Tien’s shoulder. He’d relaxed some, but still looked ready to snatch the fabrial back and slam the door in Amaram’s face.

Fortunately, Amaram didn’t keep the fabrial long. He gave it back with a smile. “Very impressive, son.”

Tien flushed, beaming. “It still needs a lot of work.”

“Don’t be so humble. Have you shown Brightness Navani? She must be thrilled.”

“Not yet.” Tien glanced at the window, the light still thin in the early morning. “I was waiting until it wasn’t the middle of the night.”

Amaram laughed and, setting the fabrial on Kaladin’s desk, Tien followed him out into the corridor. Adolin, coming up the stairs, paused at the sight of them and broke into a smile. “Amaram!”

“Good to see you, Adolin.” Amaram clapped him on the shoulder, and Adolin flexed his hand like he wanted to summon his Blade and start sparring right there in the hallway. Amaram noticed and laughed. “I have to talk to your mother for a bit, but I’ve got the afternoon free.”

“I hope you’ve been practicing since last time, Amaram. I don’t want to beat you too easily.”

“Ha! I see your ego is as healthy as ever.” Shaking his head fondly, Amaram turned and headed toward the back of the house, where Navani’s fabrial lab was.

Adolin grinned after him, then gave a start and turned toward Tien. “Renarin says you have something to show me?” He scratched his head, looking at the ceiling. “I think that’s what he said. I was half asleep and he was off to the Palanaeum with Jasnah, so…”

“How was he up before you, princeling?” Kaladin asked. “You left an hour before me and Shallan.”

“You’d still be asleep, too, if I hadn’t woken you up.” Tien grabbed Kaladin’s wrist before he could argue and motioned a grinning Adolin toward the stairs. “Come on. I want to show Shallan, too.”

* * *

“So you finally finished your fabrial?” Shallan asked, walking backwards up the street while Adolin called out directions to her and Kaladin cringed every time she came close to hitting someone or getting run over by a carriage.

Adolin frowned. “How do _you_ know about this super secret project?”

“Because _I_ am a scholar.”

Tien let the other three bicker as they wound their way back toward the Kholin home. Shallan had stayed late enough a few times to see Tien and Renarin working on something, but she didn’t know its purpose any more than Adolin did.

_I wonder if Amaram and Navani are done talking yet._ As eager as he was to show his friends what he’d made, he was almost _more_ anxious for Navani’s reaction. Shallan and Adolin would like it for the dramatic effect, Shallan perhaps also for the science behind it, but Navani was the artifabrian. Maybe she could help him figure out how to manipulate gravitation in more than one direction.

They were still several blocks away when Kaladin stiffened, stopping short and staring wide-eyed up the hill. A thin thread of black curled over the rooftops.

Pattern buzzed from his place on Shallan’s skirts. “Smoke,” he whispered. “There shouldn’t be smoke there.”

“No,” Shallan said, voice hollow. “No, there shouldn’t be.”

Kaladin and Adolin moved first, almost simultaneously, racing up the hill toward the smoke. Storms, was it coming from the house? Tien ran after them, keeping pace with Shallan, who cursed at her skirts and glowed faintly with Stormlight.

They turned the last corner into chaos. Servants and neighbors choked the street in front of the Kholin mansion, eyes wide and white in faces streaked with ash. Kaladin and Adolin searched the crowd with their eyes, but both were moving toward the doors. The flames hadn’t reached the entryway yet, but the thick column of black smoke rising into the sky undercut any hope Tien might have had for putting the fire out.

Kaladin spotted Tien and speared him with a glare. “Stay here!” he shouted.

“What? Kaladin—”

“Don’t argue. Shallan, keep him here!”

Adolin was already inside, calling out Navani’s name—with a start, Tien scanned the street. Navani _wasn’t_ there, and neither was Amaram—Kaladin cursed and charged after him. Just before he vanished into the hazy interior, Tien saw him take in Stormlight.

“Oh, Almighty,” Shallan whispered. “This is…” Her breath hitched, but she clenched her freehand into a fist. “Storm it, I wish Jasnah were here. Pattern.” Her voice sharpened on his name, dropping low at the same time so no one would hear. “I know we haven’t practiced Soulcasting a lot, but can I do something? Change the fire into something else? Turn the roof into water?”

Pattern buzzed, but Tien didn’t stay to hear his answer. Kaladin was in there. His brother. The last of his family.

Tien sprinted forward while Shallan was still muttering to Pattern. If he could just get inside, maybe… _What?_ whispered the reasonable corner of his mind. _You’re no Radiant._

_I don’t care._

Shallan caught him around the waist before he made it to the front steps.

“Let go.”

He swung blindly; his elbow caught flesh. Shallan grunted, planted her feet and _pulled_. Tien was taller than her, but there was no competing with Stormlight. Shallan actually lifted Tien off his feet as she dragged him away from the burning building.

“Let _go!_ ” He knew it was useless, but he kept struggling, thrashing in Shallan’s hold, prying at her fingers. “ _Please_ , Shallan! I can’t lose him, too!”

A figure appeared in the doorway. Two.

Tien went still with shock. Shallan stumbled and nearly dropped him. She got halfway through a question before she spotted the soot-streaked figures with singed clothes and red eyes. Navani leaned heavily on Adolin’s shoulder, dazed and sagging. Adolin held her up, though his shoulders shook with coughs not even the furor of the scene could drown out.

Tien ran for them, and this time Shallan didn’t stop him.

“Are you all right?” she asked, breathless, her fingers hovering just above the blistered skin of his cheek. Adolin leaned into the touch, nodding before another cough bent him double.

“Kaladin,” Tien said. He couldn’t remember enough words to say more.

Adolin squeezed his shoulder, and Tien had time to wonder if it was reassurance or to keep him from running into the building. “Went to find Amaram,” Adolin said. His voice was rough and thin with smoke. He coughed again, and Shallan shouted at the neighbors to bring some water even as she knelt to check on Navani, who waved her off weakly.

Tien brushed Adolin’s hand off and turned toward the house.

_He’ll be okay,_ he told himself. _He’s a Radiant. He couldn’t… He wouldn’t…_

He stumbled forward on numb legs, repeating it over and over in his head. _He’s a Radiant. He can’t die._

He was halfway to the doors when Shallan noticed and yelled for him to stop.

_How much Stormlight did he have?_ Kaladin always carried infused spheres, ever since Dalinar died. He blamed himself for that, too.

Thunderous groans blanketed the street, punctuated by sharp cracks that shook Tien to the bone.

Had Kaladin taken his purse with him when they left? He must have. But would that be enough? When was the last highstorm? Tien remembered thinking there were too many dun spheres last night when he was working on the fabrial.

A hand closed around his elbow, jerking him away from the door. So close now.

Another crack, loudest of them all.

The roof buckled and caved in. Fire blossomed toward the sky.

And Tien screamed.


	2. Shardbearer

It was a small funeral. They found remains in the charred wreckage of the house, but nothing they could Soulcast in the lighteyes tradition.

Tien was okay with that. He thought Kaladin would have preferred a darkeyes’ funeral.

The memorial service was crowded, full of Kaladin’s classmates, scholars and scribes from the Palanaeum, and… _friends_ of the Kholins. Tien didn’t mind the first two groups—he was even grateful to know how many people had cared.

But these brightlords and ladies weren’t here for Kaladin. They were here because, with Amaram gone, there was a sudden void in the Alethi King’s inner circle. Or so they all seemed to think. Tien stood as far from the lighteyes as possible through the service, blinking back tears. When he cried for Kaladin—and he did, more than once—they would not be tears of helpless rage directed at the ones who hovered around Navani and Jasnah and Adolin, never once glancing at the pyre—purely symbolic, this time—at the front of the courtyard.

Renarin was the first to join him.

“I hate this,” Renarin murmured, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tien. He swallowed, then wiped a tear away.

Tien’s vision blurred. “I hate _them_.”

Instead of answering, Renarin took Tien’s hand.

Just a few minutes later, Jasnah’s calm mask slipped. Tien couldn’t hear what she said—she never yelled, and she wouldn’t break that habit at Kaladin’s funeral—but it left several lighteyes pale-faced and cowering as she glided across the courtyard to Renarin and Tien.

“I’m leaving,” she said when she reached them. “Would you two like to join me?”

Tien stood up straighter, Renarin just a moment behind. “What happened?” Renarin asked.

Jasnah’s lips pulled into a thin line. “Politics happened.” She turned, caught Shallan’s eye. Shallan smiled through the tears that rolled freely down her cheeks, but shook her head. Adolin stood near her, red-eyed and as hard-faced as his father had been when dealing with politics.

From the set of his jaw, he was going to stay to the end, even if he ended up challenging every last brightlord to a duel. Shallan twined her freehand around his arm and nodded for Jasnah to go.

One last look toward Navani—she stood straight and unruffled, but radiating enough hostility that the other lighteyes hesitated to approach. Then Jasnah led the way to the smaller house they had moved into after the fire.

* * *

For two weeks, Tien scarcely left his room. Shallan brought him meals he didn’t have the appetite to finish. Adolin stopped by each morning with a new invitation—sometimes big, sometimes as small as helping him pick out a scarf to go with the day’s outfit. Jasnah restrained herself to pausing outside Tien’s door each morning as she headed off to the Palanaeum or wherever else her studies took her; Tien could mark time by the momentary silence between footfalls.

And Renarin, sometimes, came in and sat with him, not speaking, hardly touching. He left behind gemstones and metal scraps and blueprints that Tien left untouched on his desk, and sometimes small rocks that went into his sock drawer with the rest of his collection.

The worst, though, was Syl. She had changed after Kaladin’s death, but she hadn’t gone.

Now, two weeks to the day after the funeral, as Tien sat on the edge of his bed wondering if today would be the day he worked up the courage to visit Kaladin’s grave, she flitted in through the open window.

Tien had tried closing it, at first, but she looked so confused when he did that he just let her come and go freely now.

She laughed a breathy, chiming laugh and streaked over to his desk, forming into miniature blue replicas of the papers she whipped up around her. Tien scowled, but let her have her fun. Protesting would only make it worse.

“Tien!” she squealed, once she’d succeeded in blowing every one of Renarin’s diagram’s off the desk. Flying over to the bed, she became a young girl—a form Tien had seen more in the last two weeks than ever before—and hovering in the air on a level with his nose. Her grin lasted on a moment before, frowning, she shrank back. “You don’t look very happy.”

Tien stood and started collecting the scattered papers before Syl blew one under the bed or out the window and lost it forever. “I’m not happy,” he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to tell her that.

“Oh. Why?”

The question, all innocent curiosity, made Tien flinch. Something had happened when Kaladin died. Even if Tien hadn’t seen Syl much before, he’d heard Kaladin talk about her, and this… This was not what Tien had expected.

“My brother’s _dead_ , Syl.”

She was silent as Tien gathered up the papers under his desk and set them in a neat pile with a steel plate to hold them down in case Syl got any more fun ideas. He spotted a few more blueprints by the door.

“Kaladin,” Syl said, softly. Tien stopped, hand hovering over the last page, which showed a new design for the gravitation fabrial that had burned with the old house. “His name was Kaladin, wasn’t it? I… I remember him.”

“You _remember_ him?” Tien spun, papers crumpling in his hands. Syl sat on his headboard, for once completely still, her eyes distant. “How could you _forget_? He’s only been gone two weeks!”

“I…” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. I don’t think I’m supposed to stay.”

Tien’s anger faded as quickly as it had come “Then why did you?”

She looked so lost sitting there, her form fading like mist burning away in the morning sun. “I don’t know.” Her voice was small, almost a question. “I had to. I don’t remember why, but there was something…something…” She sighed. “Kaladin died well, and that gave me a chance to—”

“What?” Tien’s heart thudded in his chest, rocking him with what could have been anger or pain. “What do you mean he died _well_?”

“He… I… I don’t remember.” Syl pressed her hands to her ears and shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s so hard to remember without him.”

They sat in silence, the sun warming the carpet beneath Tien’s bare feet, for long minutes. Syl had been coming to him like this since the funeral. He’d resented her for it, for reminding him of Kaladin’s absence.

Somehow, it had never occurred to him that she might be lonely, too.

Sighing, Tien did what he could to smooth the crumpled papers in his hands, then turned and reached for the last page.

Syl was faster.

“Oooh, what’s this?” she asked, catching the edge of the page. A stirring of wind came with her and lifted the paper up over Tien’s head.

“Give that back,” Tien said, fighting down irritation. “Syl!”

She stuck her tongue out, then dragged the page out the window. Tien lunged after her, his hand brushing the corner of the page before she yanked it away.

“You want it?” she called, struggling with the paper, which was more than twice her size. “Come get it.”

She zipped away, and the wind caught the page and kept it aloft. Kept it aloft almost too well; it was hard to say if Syl was carrying the page or letting it drag her wherever the wind took them.

Swearing, Tien slammed the window shut. It was just a stupid blueprint. What did he care? If Syl was going to be like that, he should just ignore her. All she wanted was to get a rise out of him.

But it was _his_ fabrial. The gravitation fabrial. Renarin had gone to all the trouble of recreating their blueprint, and Tien didn’t want it to end up out in the harbor or something.

“Storming windspren,” he muttered, throwing his door wide.

Adolin stood outside, hand raised to knock. He lurched back as Tien barreled out. “Whoah! Uh, hey, Tien.”

“Adolin! Hi.” Tien forced a smile. “I was just, uh, heading out. For a bit.”

“Oh? Oh!” Adolin brightened, a smile squirming out through his confusion. “That’s good—that’s great, actually. Where are you going?”

“Where? Er—fabrial market. I just.” Remembering the stockpile of supplies Renarin had been building up, Tien eased the door shut. “I just need one or two little things.”

Adolin clapped Tien on the shoulder, grinning. “Good for you. Hey, you want to meet up with the others for dinner or something?”

Already trying to make his escape, Tien barely heard question. “Sure. Uh, wait. Maybe. How about I get back to you on that one?”

“Sure thing. I’ll be training this afternoon, so feel free to stop by.”

Adolin dragged him back just long enough to ruffle his hair, and then—finally—Tien made it to the front door.

* * *

It took almost an hour, but he finally caught up to Syl at the top of one the older, unused paths outside the city proper. It climbed the cliff in steep switchbacks, emerging finally on the plateau above the palace roof.

The view, Tien had to admit, was pretty nice. A cascade of tiled white and red roofs, gray-paved streets, and multihued gardens raced away below him to the sapphire waves beyond. Rockbuds snapped shut as he walked the last stretch of the trail, turning a slow circle to take in the wide open _space_ of the plateau. He’d lived in Kharbranth so long he’d almost forgotten what it was like not to have a cliff between him and the sky.

The blueprint fluttered weakly on the path ahead, Syl tugging at the corner. She saw Tien and slumped, swatting hair out of her eyes.

“This thing is heavy,” she said.

Tien gave her a flat stare as he grabbed the page, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket. “I’m actually kind of impressed that you made it this far.”

Syl grinned. “Thank you.”

“Don’t do it again.”

Straightening, Tien caught sight of something ahead, boulders that didn’t match the brown-gray stone of the plateau. No, not boulders. As Tien got closer, he saw that it was rubble, the weathered remains of…what?

“That’s weird,” he muttered.

Syl drifted up and alighted on his shoulder. “What is?”

“Who would have built something up here? There’s no way it could’ve survived its first highstorm.”

“Hmm.” Frowning, Syl went to inspect. “This place…”

“What?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. It feels…familiar.”

“Familiar how?”

Syl didn’t get a chance to answer. A figure dressed in white, their face covered by a featureless mask, rose from the rubble. Catching sight of Tien, they stiffened, and stretched out their hand. A Shardblade formed from mist, pale surface glistening with moisture. It had a ragged, uneven profile, like broken glass.

Tien’s breath caught in his throat. He staggered back, casting about him for something—anything—he could use as a weapon. But there was nothing. Nothing but stones the size of his thumb and rockbuds he’d never be able to pry free in time.

His foot slipped on a dip in the rocky ground and he caught himself awkwardly, palms scraping on the stone.

Cold fear slid down his spine and he stared up at the Shardbearer.

“Tien?”

Tien sucked in a breath. “Adolin,” he shouted, scrambling backwards. “Adolin! I’m up here!”

The man in white stiffened, backing away. A sound like a whitespine’s snarl echoed through the mask.

Then he turned, ran three steps, and fell into the sky.

* * *

They retreated to the Palanaeum and their usual alcove. It was the first time Tien had been back since Kaladin died, and the space felt hollow without him.

_Don’t think about that._

He focused instead on his friends. Apparently Adolin had picked up on Tien’s odd behavior and had convinced the others to come looking for him. Adolin looked ready to duel at the mention of the Shardbearer and probably would have gone out looking for him if not for his brother.

“You can’t fight someone you don’t know,” Renarin pointed out.

Adolin hadn’t looked happy about it, but he slumped in his chair and let Jasnah talk. She’d seemed surprised to find Tien atop the cliff, at the ruins she evidently knew quite well.

“An Oathgate?” Tien asked. “What’s that?”

Renarin and Adolin looked at Jasnah, then at each other, twin frowns on their faces.

Jasnah ignored them both. “It’s a fabrial,” she said. “There aren’t many records of them, so when those ruins were discovered I came here to study them. That is likely the same thing that made my mother drag Dalinar here after they married.”

An odd, tense mood hung over the table. Tien fidgeted, but curiosity got the better of him. “But what does it do?”

“According to the texts I’ve found, the Oathgates were once used by the Knights Radiant to travel great distances quickly, perhaps instantaneously.”

“According to the texts?” Tien frowned and looked to Renarin for an explanation, but he stared fixedly at the table. “You never got it working?”

Jasnah shook her head. “No.”

Adolin kicked his feet up on the table, earning a glare from Jasnah. He glared right back. “You don’t need to be so vague about it.”

“I was trying to be sensitive.”

With a snort, Adolin turned to Tien. “You know about Father’s visions. He was interested in anything related to the Radiants—including the Oathgates. And for the record?” His eyes flickered back to Jasnah. “He was the one who dragged us out here, not Aunt Navani.”

Jasnah’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“There was an accident,” Renarin said, before anything could come of the glares. “Jasnah and Aunt Navani were running tests, supplying Stormlight to study the mechanism of it. But the gate destabilized, and…”

“And Father died,” Adolin finished.

Tien stared at them in shock. He’d never heard much about the accident that killed Brightlord Dalinar, only that Jasnah and Navani were there and that a fabrial had been involved. He’d still felt too much an outside in the house to press for answers.

“But what would the Shardbearer want with a broken old fabrial?” Tien asked.

Jasnah started to answer, hesitated, then began again, speaking slowly. “Perhaps he means to rebuild it?”

“You think he’s smart enough for that?” Shallan asked, arching her eyebrow. “If Navani couldn’t make it work, how could someone whose idea of problem-solving probably begins and ends with swinging a Shardblade at it?”

Jasnah didn’t answer, but she looked troubled about something.

Tien found it hard to care about the distant possibility of an ancient fabrial being rebuilt. “There’s more to it,” he said, eyes drifting to Syl, who sat on the railing at the far end of their alcove. She’d shown herself to the others, but their surprised questions had upset her, driving her away.

_She said there was something she had to do._

“What if he was the one who set that fire?”

Shallan stiffened in her seat. “Tien…”

“Don’t _Tien_ me. You know that fire was no accident.”

“Maybe not, but—”

“No,” Jasnah said, watching Tien with an inscrutable gaze. “If his goal was the Oathgate, it would explain why he targeted our family. Why the fire started when Mother was alone—nearly alone—in the house.”

Adolin’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you actually believe this?”

“That surprises you?”

Shallan idly rolled a pencil back and forth on the table. “It’s just that you don’t normally jump to conclusions like this.”

Leaning back in her seat, Jasnah crossed her arms. “Have you considered that I have good reason to entertain his theory?”

“Good reason?” Renarin asked.

But Jasnah would say no more. Silence filled the alcove, broken by the voices of scholars here for afternoon research. Lights glowed in more than half of the alcoves, figures scurried around in the shelves far below. It all seemed so…normal.

“So he killed Kaladin,” Tien said. The edge in his voice seemed to startle the others, but Tien ignored their stares and leaned forward, fingers spread on the tabletop. “Who else was involved in the Oathgate research?”

Jasnah looked troubled. “There were a number of scholars following the project, and close to a dozen of Dalinar’s scribes.”

“And Sadeas.” Adolin’s voice was near a growl, and Tien shivered hearing it. _Sadeas_. Tien had done his best to avoid the man—not hard with as much time as the Highprince spent in Kholinar—but he knew enough. He knew Sadeas had been furious when Dalinar took in Kaladin and Tien. Darkeyes, he’d said, had no business being wards of such a powerful house.

“I know what you’re thinking, Adolin,” Jasnah said, arching one eyebrow imperiously. “Let’s not start this again.”

 _Again?_ Tien wondered.

“Sadeas _hated_ Kaladin! Almost as much as he hated Father. Fine, so he didn’t kill Father. That doesn’t mean he didn’t set that fire.”

“To what end, Adolin?”

“He’s a monster,” Adolin said. “I don’t trust him.”

Shallan sighed. “That’s not a motive, Adolin.”

For a moment, Adolin faltered, but only for a moment. The stubborn scowl never left his face. “He helped fun your Oathgate research, didn’t he? Maybe he thinks the project shouldn’t have been abandoned.”

“He does.” Renarin ran his thumb along the hinges of his box and met Adolin’s eyes, briefly. “Sadeas and Jasnah have been trying to fix the Oathgate ever since the accident. If he wanted something with it, he wouldn’t have to sneak around.”

* * *

Officially the “Sadeas murdered Kaladin” theory was dead.

Unofficially, Tien spent the rest of that night and most of the next day building an improved gravitation fabrial from Renarin’s new design. This version let him Lash horizontally as well as vertically, though it took some time to get used to maneuvering like that.

Tien didn’t mind the delay. Much. He needed the time to get his second fabrial right. This one he couldn’t take to Renarin. Syl—the only one besides Tien who knew what he was making—was hesitant enough about it, though she agreed that Tien would need it. He doubted Renarin would be as understanding.

Tien wasn’t willing to risk it. It was hard enough finding time to work on the new fabrial with his friends always coming to check on him. They all came at least once a day, alone or in groups, if Tien didn’t turn up at the Palanaeum. Navani, too, though she at least wasn’t there to stop him going after Sadeas.

“I won’t ask you to stay out of this altogether,” Adolin said. He visited more than the others, and Tien hadn’t been able to figure out how much of that was because Adolin thought he owed it to Kaladin, how much was for Renarin’s sake, and how much was because Adolin cared for Tien in his own right.

None of the possibilities made it any less annoying.

“If something happened to Renarin, or—storms—if I had someone to blame for Father’s death, I know I couldn’t sit by.” Adolin was leaning on the doorframe, glaring at the floor, and seemed not to notice that Tien was barely paying attention. “So I won’t ask you to do nothing. But don’t do it alone, okay? Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it alone.”

Tien was ashamed at how much he wanted to refuse.

But eventually, he did promise, and the words took some of the tension out of Adolin’s shoulders.

* * *

“I’ll have to go back to Shadesmar eventually,” Syl told him a few days later as they sat atop the roof, watching the streets of Kharbranth. Tien had finally finished his fabrial, and he was getting used to Lashing with Renarin’s, which meant it was almost time to confront the man in white.

Syl’s confession startled him out of his thoughts. She didn’t talk to him very often; mostly she just chased after cremlings and rode the wind and sometimes turned into a stormcloud that leaked rain like tears.

“Go back?” he asked, trying to imagine his cluttered workspace without her mischief and chatter. “Why?”

Syl smiled glumly, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t have a bond anymore. If I stay, I’ll eventually turn back into a windspren, or something like one, and I… I don’t want to be like that again. I have to go back before I forget completely.”

“Oh.” It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He’d barely known her before Kaladin died, just a few weeks ago now, but she was all he had left of Kaladin. He didn’t want her to go.

“I’ll stay as long as I can, though,” she promised, touching down on his hand. “I’ll try to stay until we catch the one who killed him, at least.”

_And then what?_

Before he could ask, Glys appeared, a cluster of luminous sparks hovering in midair. He rotated slowly, casting shifting patterns on the roof tiles.

“We found him.”

* * *

Jasnah gave Renarin a sharp look when Tien arrived. She hadn’t tried to hide the fact that she thought Tien should leave the hunt for Kaladin’s murderer to the Radiants and Shardbearers. Obviously Renarin hadn’t told her he’d sent Glys to find Tien.

Knowing that made Tien feel warm inside, despite his growing anxiety and his simmering rage.

“He deserves to be here,” Renarin murmured, giving Tien a small smile.

Jasnah sighed, but didn’t try to make Tien leave. “Stay back with Renarin,” was all she said.

Shallan and Adolin arrived together a few moments later, Blades in hand, Adolin in his Plate and bouncing on his toes. They hardly waited for Renarin to point out a small, unremarkable building up the street before they were moving, Jasnah close behind with her own Blade held low. She looked more comfortable with the weapon than Shallan.

Tien stayed close to Renarin, for now, though his gravitation fabrial glowed faintly blue on his wrist. He fingered the other, newer fabrial, a tiny, intricate mechanism smaller than the amethyst that powered it, and waited.

At the edge of his vision, Syl hung perfectly still in the air, watching him. Tien pretended not to notice.

For about ten seconds, Tien thought the building was empty. It was a warehouse full of strange fabrials, most of them dismantled, more than a few heaped in a mountain of twisted, partially melted metal in the corner. The only lights came from the spheres buried among the fabrials, twinkling like multicolored stars.

Ten seconds, and then the Shardbearer attacked.

The speed with which Shallan dodged backward—and with which Adolin darted forward to meet the figure falling from the ceiling—told Tien Jasnah had been right. He was no soldier. Two minutes at this pace, and Tien would be dead, fabrials or no.

So he held back, itching to help while his friends hounded the Shardbearer. Shallan cloaked herself in shadow and Jasnah took in Stormlight from the broken fabrials, but the Shardbearer retreated to the ceiling between attacks, far out of their reach.

It reminded Tien of Kaladin, and the answering rage nearly drove him into the battle, untrained or not. Even Renarin was helping, where he could, conjuring illusions of Shallan to distract and divert.

Tien saw the exact moment the Shardbearer realized he was there. Maybe he’d been too distracted by the fight, or maybe he’d just assumed Tien wouldn’t come to a battle between Shardbearers, but when their eyes met through the man’s mask, he went utterly still.

Just for a moment, he stared.

Then he Lashed himself across the room, Blade aimed at Tien’s heart.

Tien had no time to consider. Screaming for Syl, he pulled the second fabrial out of his pocket. A silver ribbon twined around his closed fist, his heart thudded in his ears. Three beats, four. Five.

At seven, the Shardbearer arrived, and Tien thumbed the controls of his gravitation fabrial, Lashing himself backwards. He fell, the Shardbearer matching his pace, for three final hearbeats.

Tien’s feet hit the wall.

Syl entered the amethyst in his hand.

And Tien raised a Shardblade to meet the one inches from his chest.

The shock of the impact rang in his teeth, but the fabrial had done its job. Syl, in Blade form, pushed the Shardbearer’s Blade aside far enough to save Tien’s life.

The man’s eyes were wide through the eyes of his mask. Below, Renarin and Adolin gaped at him openly.

_Hurry, Tien._

Syl’s voice, an echo inside his head.

_You can’t fight him alone. Get down there before he gets himself together._

Tien wasn’t about to argue. He swung his Blade, a thrashing, two-handed sweep that never would have hit its mark. But it made the Shardbearer pull back, and Tien fumbled with the controls on his palm until ordinary gravity reasserted itself and he fell to the ground.

His friends surrounded him even before he’d gotten his bearings, a wall of Stormlight and Shardplate rallying to meet the man in white. Three Blades rose to meet his attack. Tien didn’t see who scored the hit that sent the man sprawling, but the silence that followed sounded loud in his ears.

A broken mask dropped the floor beside him.

Tien turned, shaking, head still spinning from the terror-driven Lashings, and looked at his brother’s murderer.

Adolin inhaled sharply. “Amaram?”

“No.” Tien’s voice shook. His feet wavered between running away and throwing himself at Amaram before he could pick himself up off the floor. “ _No._ You—you died!”

Amaram looked up, his eyes soft with—no. Tien refused to accept pity from _him._

“The fire,” Shallan whispered. “How did you survive?”

Amaram sat up slowly, his eyes locked on Tien’s. Tien was too numb to look away. “I had your fabrial.” He raised his arm, shook back his sleeve, and only then did Tien force his eyes to move, to take in the silvery web of the fabrial, _his_ fabrial. “My engineers have modified it since then, of course, but they couldn’t have done it without your template. They all agree it was genius.”

It sounded like praise, like an apology, like a man soothing a whitespine with nonsense words.

Tien didn’t care. He finally moved, anger winning out over shock and carrying him to the front of his cluster of friends. Syl whispered a warning in his mind.

Tien ignored that, too.

“Kaladin…” he whispered. “Kaladin went in there to save you. He _died_ saving you!”

Sympathy faded from Amaram’s eyes. He stood, face hard, and shook his sleeve down to cover the fabrial on his arm. “That was his mistake.”

Roaring in pain, in rage, Tien threw himself forward, swinging his Blade for Amaram’s head.

Amaram Lashed himself backward, falling easily away from Tien’s thrust.

_Tien, stop!_

Tien ignored Syl’s frantic cry, ignored the shouts that chased him as he Lashed himself after Amaram. He saw only Kaladin’s pyre, only the burst of flame and smoke as the roof caved in on his brother.

“ _You killed him!_ ”

Amaram dodged again, holding out his hand to summon his Blade back. Tien lunged forward, forcing Amaram to Lash himself upward, Blade momentarily forgotten.

“If it helps,” Amaram said grimly as he landed above Tien’s head, “I would have spared him, had I known.”

“You’re lying!”

Tien landed hard enough that his Blade bit into the stone where Amaram had stood, leaving a narrow, smooth-sided hole the size of his hand. Syl screamed at him, but it was nothing next to the roaring in his ears that said Amaram deserved to die.

“It’s the truth,” Amaram said. He backed away slowly now, hand out. “A Desolation is coming, and the world is unprepared. I couldn’t figure out why the Radiants had never come. All I could do was gather what fabrials I could to make up for their absence. If I’d known your brother was a Radiant himself—”

“I don’t care!” Tien swung just as the Blade dropped into Amaram’s hand. The jolt of Shard on Shard made Tien’s bones ache, but Amaram’s grip was weak and unprepared, and the Blade tumbled away and melted back into mist. “Kaladin’s _dead_ because of you!”

_Tien, no!_

Tien closed both hands around his Blade and swung. Amaram fumbled with his fabrial and began to fall, but he was too late. Tien had caught him off guard, and this time he wouldn’t slip out of Tien’s reach.

_He deserves to die._

Adolin’s Blade hit Tien’s with an ear-splitting shriek, knocking it from Tien’s hands. Both Blades buried themselves in the ceiling as Amaram fell, eyes wide. He hit the ground and darted out the door before Tien was finished gaping at the Blade quivering at his feet.

A moment later, it faded to mist, and the voices of his friends finally caught up to him.

“Tien!” Shallan called, her voice tremulous and afraid. “Please come down, Tien.”

Adolin’s voice ran in a low babble beneath Shallan’s cries. “Storms. Oh, storms! Did I hit him? Stormfather! I didn’t mean to. I didn’t—I just— _Storms!_ ”

Jasnah’s cold stare hit as hard as any shout, Renarin’s as damning for his bloodless grimace of fear, and Tien flinched away, blood running cold as the reality of the last few minutes began to sink in.

Somewhere, someone was crying.

 _Syl_.

Numb, Tien pulled the Blade from the stone, switched off the fabrial in the pommel. Syl, freed from her Blade form, became human in appearance just long enough to give Tien a teary-eyed glare.

Then she was a tiny, roiling stormcloud zipping away from him and out onto the streets of Kharbranth.


	3. Radiant

It was just Tien’s luck that Kharbranth was due for a stretch of winter. The temperature dropped steadily over the course of the evening while Tien wandered the streets looking for Syl. The gray sky, thick with clouds, made a perfect match for Tien's mood.

The others had wanted to come, but Tien had Lashed himself two streets over and then run before any of them could find him. He didn’t want company now. It would either be awkward silence as they tried not to yell at him for almost murdering Amaram, or it would be pity, which Tien thought might be worse than the anger.

He knew he’d screwed up. If he could work up the courage to talk to Adolin after this, he would thank him for stopping him. The anger didn’t have to fade much for him to see that what he'd been trying to do was murder. It wouldn't have helped him, not when he knew perfectly storming well what Kaladin would have said, had he been alive to witness that fight.

Guilt, as it turned out, was even worse than grief.

The sun had gone down…how long ago? An hour, two? Tien had stopped paying attention, but Salas was up now, and street lamps glowed with spheres, and he still hadn’t seen any sign of Syl.

He kept hearing her screams. In the creak of rusty hinges, in the cry of a skyeel, in voices half-heard through open windows. It had been a scream of pain, and Tien had ignored it in the name of vengeance.

Storms, he hoped she was all right.

He shivered, regretting his decision not to go home for a jacket. It would have meant facing the Kholins and probably Shallan too, but at least he would have been warm. The wind cut through his clothes, which were no longer damp with sweat, but felt like they might have been sewn from the water of the Frostlands sea.

Tucking his hands into his armpits, Tien wandered on. He wasn’t ready to admit, just yet, that searching was pointless. If Syl didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t find her.

It was near midnight before he gave up. Cold, tired, and stiff, he trudged home and used the last wisps of Stormlight in his fabrial to Lash himself to the wall and climb in through his bedroom window.

Renarin sat on his bed, idly flicking the lid of his box open and shut, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He looked up as Tien’s feet hit the floor, flushed, and shot to his feet. He was halfway out the door before Tien found his voice.

“I’m sorry.”

Renarin paused, then pulled the door shut. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Sudden tears burned behind Tien’s eyes, and he turned under the pretense of looking for a jacket. “I do, though,” he said, laughing at the warble in his words. “To Syl, mostly, but I can’t find her, and you—I…” He found a jacket and pulled it on, then blinked rapidly, trying to gather himself before he faced Renarin. “I shouldn’t have gone with you.”

A hand on his shoulder, hesitant and jittery, startled Tien into turning.

“That wasn’t you,” Renarin said.

“I _know_ , Renarin. I know I screwed up. I know I shouldn’t have—”

“No.” Renarin pulled his hand back, holding it against his chest like he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to let go of Tien. He shook his head, frustrated. “ _That_ isn’t _you_. You were hurt and—and angry, and you made a mistake. Okay. But there’s more to you than that mistake.” He hesitated. “I don’t hate you.”

Tien jerked back, face going hot. “What?”

Renarin snuck a look at his face. “I don’t hate you, and I’m pretty sure the others don’t, either. I…that’s why you ran away. Isn’t it? You were afraid to face us?”

“Well—not—no… I just.” Tien took a deep breath and tried again. “I guess, maybe, I was a little nervous. I just needed to be alone for a little while.”

Renarin smiled. “Fair enough. Just remember that there are people here for you if you need us.”

“I…thanks.”

“And—here.” Renarin held out his hand, palm up. A small, smooth stone, pure white except for a thin red line across the middle. “I was thinking about when we first met. You were happier then. Everything was happier then. I don’t know how to…fix things, but I thought, maybe, this might help. I thought it might remind you that even when things aren’t right, you can still find something good.”

He laughed abruptly, self-consciously, and ducked his head. The sound of his laughter brought a smile to Tien’s face.

“Or something like that,” Renarin said. “You always had such perfect reasons why each rock mattered. I figured I should have a reason for this rock, too.”

“It’s a good one,” Tien assured him, closing his fingers around the rock. He could still feel Renarin’s warmth inside it. Renarin turned back toward the door and Tien called out, suddenly reluctant to let him leave. “Renarin?”

Renarin turned.

“I was gone for…kind of a long time. Have you been waiting this whole time?”

A flash of surprise, then embarrassment, filled Renarin’s eyes. He rubbed the tip of his nose. “Yes. I, um, just wanted to make sure you came back.” He shrugged, trying on a smile that didn’t fit him. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.”

* * *

 

Syl returned sometime while Tien slept. He woke in the morning to find her sitting on his end table, frowning at the rock Renarin had given him.

Tien froze, propped up on his elbows, afraid if he moved too fast she’d spook.

“You’re back.”

She looked up at him, smiling faintly. “I promised you I’d stay until this was done, didn’t I?”

Tien knew—thought—it wasn’t meant as an accusation, but it still hit him like a punch and he blew out a long breath as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. “I’m sorry, Syl. What I did—I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“It’s not okay,” Tien said. “But thanks. For coming back.”

He curled his toes against the grain of the rug, then stood and crossed to his dresser, where he’d left both fabrials last night. The Shardblade fabrial looked so small and harmless on its own, just an amethyst set into a disc of tiny metal plates and wires. Tien pried the gem out with sleep-numbed fingers while Syl watched, silent.

There was an artifabrian’s hammer sitting on the other side of the dresser with an abandoned project. A small, lightweight tool, but enough to break the Shardblade fabrial. Tien pounded away at it, then grabbed a screwdriver to pry apart the pieces, shredding the mechanism until Syl approached and put her hand on Tien’s thumb.

He dropped the tool and scrubbed at the tears gathering on his cheeks. He hadn't noticed them until now. "I’m sorry.”

“You won’t be able to fight now,” she said, caught in the confused middle ground between worry and gratitude.

“That’s okay. I wasn’t meant to be a soldier.”

* * *

 

Jasnah was the first to put the pieces together.

She had gathered some of the fabrials Amaram had left scattered around his warehouse and brought them back for Navani and Renarin to examine.

“They all deal with one of the ten Surges,” Renarin explained once the five of them had gathered. “Or they try to; most of them don’t work.”

“Which explains why he was poking around the Oathgate,” Jasnah said. “He’s trying to replicate Transportation.”

Tien shivered. “But why? What good does it do him to collect all these fabrials?”

Adolin grunted from his position at the back of the group, leaning against the wall. “Does it matter? He’s willing to kill to get them. I don’t care if he wants to use them to save orphaned axehound pups, we have to stop him.”

No one argued the point.

“He’s not just studying the Oathgate, though.” Jasnah frowned at the fabrials spread out on the table before her. She picked one up, turned it over, and frowned at one of the gem settings. “He’s trying to rebuild it.”

Adolin straightened up, face clouding over. “Rebuild it? That thing killed Father—and Amaram wants to _rebuild_ it?”

Jasnah nodded. “I went up there last night. He’s cleared away the rubble and rebuilt most of the fabrial.”

“You destroyed it, right?”

She shot Adolin an impatient look. “The Oathgate is practically indestructible. It tore _itself_ apart six months ago, and we’re still not sure how.”

Shallan narrowed her eyes at Jasnah. “We?”

Jasnah actually hesitated at that. She took the time to set the fabrial back on the table and straighten the row of them before she answered. “After the accident, Sadeas and I thought there might be a chance that my uncle had survived. He’s funded my research and provided his own scribes to help.”

"You mentioned that before." Adolin’s voice rumbled in his chest, low like distant thunder. “I still don't get why you're working with _Sadeas._ ”

Jasnah lifted her chin. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“He’s an eel! A sneak.” Adolin threw up his hands in frustration. “He _hated_ Father. How can you trust him?”

“First of all,” Jasnah said, staring him down, “Sadeas didn’t hate Dalinar. They disagreed on a great many points, and occasionally they argued, but Dalinar withdrew from Alethi politics almost completely when he came to Kharbranth.”

“But they—”

“They were friends once.” Jasnah’s voice was ice, and even Adolin backed down from it. “As long as Dalinar didn’t get in Sadeas’s way, he had no reason to feel more than mild disdain for what Sadeas saw as weakness. He offered to help for my sake, for my father’s, and for the sake of the friendship he once shared with your father. I wouldn’t trust Sadeas with my life, but I have no qualms about accepting his aid in funding research the university deems too hazardous to condone.”

Adolin, it seemed, had nothing to say to that.

Tien glanced between them, frowning. “This isn’t really relevant right now, is it? Amaram’s rebuilding the Oathgate, not Sadeas.”

“Yes,” said Jasnah, placid once more. “Except that Sadeas and I both removed a piece of the fabrial to prevent this exact possibility.”

“So we just have to keep yours safe, then?” Tien asked.

Jasnah grimaced. “It disappeared in the fire. Amaram must have noticed on his last visit. Your gravitation fabrial was a pleasant surprise, but he started the fire to get the Oathgate piece. He probably thought it was the _only_ missing piece; Sadeas isn’t very outspoken about his involvement with my research.”

“Hold on.” Adolin held up a hand, eyes closed as though what he was about to say physically hurt. “You’re saying Amaram’s going to go after Sadeas.”

“I don’t know if he’s made the connection yet, but yes. Sooner or later he will.”

“So you’re saying that if we want to stop Amaram, we have to protect Sadeas.”

Jasnah crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes.”

“But—”

“Kaladin would do it,” Tien said. The silence in the room felt like a stormwall had just hit, and every eye turned to Tien. He took a deep breath, eyes going to Syl, who smiled at him. “Kaladin hated Sadeas, but… he would protect Sadeas anyway, because it’s right.”

The silence lasted a moment too long, Tien’s heart thudding in his chest.

Then Adolin swore, colorfully, under his breath. “Fine. Stormfather. Let’s go save Sadeas.”

* * *

 

Tien grabbed Sadeas by the arm and Lashed them both backward as Amaram crashed to the ground where they had been standing. Adolin tackled him before he could chase and Jasnah appeared a moment later in a flash of light, Shardblade seeking flesh.

Amaram lurched skyward and hovered over their heads.

“A Desolation is upon us!” he shouted, scanning the remains of Sadeas’s mansion for Shallan, who had cloaked herself in an illusion as soon as she had a hold of the Oathgate mechanism. “I need to finish my research if the world is to stand any chance of surviving.”

Tien scowled up at him, moving so he stayed between Sadeas and Amaram, Renarin at his side. He still hated Amaram for letting Kaladin die; Tien doubted that would ever change. But he was content to let the others fight him. He'd had enough of vengeance for one lifetime.

“The world needs _Radiants_ if it’s going to survive,” Tien said, and he was surprised at how even his voice came out. “Only you let one of them die.”

Amaram’s face tightened. “It’s no great loss when the so-called Radiants waste their time on trivial studies and self-indulgent sketches of half-naked sailors.”

An indignant squawk, soft though it was, betrayed Shallan’s position.

With a grim smile, Amaram lashed himself in her direction. Adolin gave a shout and dashed to intercept. Amaram barely spared him a glance. He produced a fabrial from an inner pocket and tossed it to the floor.

Adolin’s feet skidded out from under him and he landed with a crash. Scrambling, he tried to regain his footing, but his Plate found no purchase. It was as though the ground beneath him had turned to ice.

Jasnah arrived an instant too late to stop Amaram from colliding, feet first, with the invisible figure lurking by the door. Shallan’s illusion broke as she slammed against the wall, head striking with a nauseating crack.

Spark leapt from Jasnah’s fingers.

Amaram dropped his Blade, thrusting his sword hand forward. Crimson light shone through the fabric of his glove. Too fast for Tien to trust his eyes, the lightning vanished. But it looked like it had gone _into_ Amaram’s hand—into the Soulcaster he must have had hidden there.

Jasnah slowed, shocked, for a single heartbeat. Renarin sprinted toward Shallan’s limp body. Across the room, Adolin still floundered, breathless swearing rising to a thunder.

Amaram smiled and reached inside his jacket as he bent to pick up the piece of Oathgate Shallan had dropped.

“This has been amusing,” he said, rising off the ground, “but I’m afraid I’m out of time to play.” He pulled out another fabrial, this one a sphere the size of a gemheart. “A parting gift, courtesy of the Dustbringers.”

Jasnah’s eyes went wide.

She moved, even as Amaram tossed the fabrial, and caught it before it hit the ground.

A flash of light, and she was gone.

“Jasnah!” Adolin cried. “Storm you Amaram, what did you do?”

He only laughed, then Lashed himself out through a hole in the roof.

Tien moved without thinking, chasing Amaram into the sky. Adolin and Renarin’s shouts followed him for a brief moment.

Then the only sound was the howl of wind in his ears.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Syl asked. She stood beside his head, arms crossed, moving in time with him without seeming to move at all. “You destroyed that other fabrial. You can’t fight him.”

“I need to do something.”

Amaram went to the cliff overlooking Kharbranth, to the ruins of the Oathgate. The rubble had been cleared away since Tien’s last visit, leaving a round platform surrounded by a low wall set with the workings of an enormous fabrial. Another, newer-looking fabrial had been fixed over the Oathgate opposite a gap in the wall that Tien took for a door. Amaram fit the last piece in place, his Soulcaster flashing with pale purple light to seal the fractured metal together.

Tien touched down behind him. “You can’t do this.”

Amaram turned.

“You think you can study it,” Tien went on, spreading his hands to show that he was unarmed. “You think you can use it, and then copy it, but…Amaram, the Oathgate is dangerous. It killed Dalinar. You can’t control it!”

“I almost managed it once.” The smile that touched Amaram’s face looked almost apologetic.

Syl gasped, then growled—not a sound Tien had ever heard from her. “He _didn’t_.”

Tien looked at her, briefly, before returning his attention to Amaram. “What is it?” he whispered.

“Kaladin and I helped Jasnah sort through the rubble after this thing went out of control. Just to see if there was…well, if there was a body underneath.” Syl’s form shivered, and she pulled in closer against Tien’s neck. “There wasn’t, but there was something else. A fabrial. Jasnah thought someone might have tampered with the Oathgate, or set up a side-experiment that interfered with hers.

“She thought that might have been what killed Dalinar.”

Tien sucked in a sharp breath. “You mean Amaram killed Dalinar, too?”

Amaram heard, and he closed his eyes. “That truly was an accident. Dalinar was a good friend. I never would have put him in danger.”

“He’s still dead because of you.”

Sighing, Amaram squared his shoulders. “I know. Sacrifices have to be made if Roshar is to survive. I accepted that a long time ago.” He reached for the new addition to the Oathgate fabrial. "There is no cost too high, so long as my artifabrians get the data they need." His eyes met Tien's, hollow and resigned. "No cost at all."

Tien _ran_. He moved faster than he’d ever moved before, feet outpacing his pulse, to tackle Amaram.

Too slow.

Amaram activated his fabrial—and the Oathgate—before Tien reached him. The spheres set in brackets around the ring began to glow, the fabrial humming with power. Tien locked his arms around Amaram and swiped blindly at the controls on his palm. He didn't have time to focus, but whatever controls he hit did the job, Lashing them both up and sideways so they cleared the edge of the ring before the light crested, blazing up in a brilliant ring of light.

Struggling, Amaram reached for the fabrials locked around his hands and wrists. Tien fought with him, clawing at the chains and clasps, trying to pry the fabrials off before Amaram could—

He wrested his right hand free, the hand that bore the Soulcaster, and clamped down on Tien’s shoulder. "I truly am sorry," he said, as Light glowed through the fabric of his glove. "But I can't let you get in my way."

The glow faltered, then died.

Amaram froze, and Tien finally succeeded in tearing the gravitation fabrial from his wrist. Even as Tien flung it aside, however, he saw that the gemstones set into the metal casing had gone dun. Frowning, Tien caught Amaram’s glove and pulled it off. The Soulcaster, too, had lost its Light. For that matter, so had Tien’s. The Oathgate must have done something when it activated, draining the Stormlight from all the spheres nearby. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he’d still been inside the ring when it happened.

The Oathgate still glowed, though, kicking up a stiff wind on the clifftop, whipping up dirt and dust until Tien’s eyes watered. He staggered forward, arm raised against the stinging grit. Amaram he left behind; he still had his Blade, but he’d lost use of his fabrials, which made the Oathgate the bigger threat for now.

Tien had to shut it down.

“Tien, wait!”

Syl tumbled past, a leaf riding the wind, then righted herself and surged back towards him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, near a shout to be heard over the roar.

Her eyes drifted toward the spinning column of light. “There’s someone in there.”

“ _What_?”

She turned around, eyes wide, hands bunched into fists at her sides. “There’s someone _in_ there. I think…I think it might be Dalinar.”

A hundred questions poured into Tien’s head. _How?_ How had he been stuck inside the Oathgate for six months? How could Syl even sense him? Could she be sure it was Dalinar and not someone else? Did that even _matter_?

Tien shoved all the question aside and asked the only one that mattered. “Is he alive?”

“Yes.”

Tien nodded, leaned into the wind, and started running toward the Oathgate. Syl kept pace, silent, neither chiding him nor urging him onward. She seemed satisfied, though.

At least, Tien thought she did, in the split second their eyes met before he plunged into the torrent of light.

He just hoped he wasn't going to get himself killed.

* * *

 

For an instant, he felt as though he’d Lashed himself skyward, caught nearly weightless between one step and the next.

Then he came down, down into a sea of spheres.

Tien’s feet slipped out from under him, and he fell, tumbling down a slope of slick glass beads. They coursed over him, finding the openings in his shirt, his shoes, slithering against his skin like cremlings searching for water. They even tried to worm into his mouth before he clenched his teeth against the invasion.

He fell until he thought he would fall forever, and then he tumbled out onto smooth, cold ground.

Coughing, shaking spheres out of his clothes, Tien staggered to his feet. “Where am I?”

“Shadesmar.”

Syl caught his arm and helped him up, laughing as he nearly overbalanced. She was almost as tall as him now, her eyes alight with amusement that soon faded to half a smile.

“You’re…big,” Tien said.

“No,” she said, in what almost passed for her normal teasing voice. “I’m just not small anymore.”

“Oh…yeah, Shadesmar is your home, isn’t it?” He looked around. Countless black spheres tumbled down from the heap Tien had landed on, bouncing and rolling across the featureless black ground. A strange, crystalline tree stood nearby, glittering in the unnerving light of a black sun. “Not much to see, is there…?”

He trailed off as his eyes fell the man sitting beneath the tree.

“Brightlord Dalinar?”

Dalinar stood, stretching. “I have to admit," he said with a smile. "When the spren told me to return here, I wasn’t expecting to find you.”

“The spren?”

“I’ve been staying in one of their cities while we tried to figure out a way to contact my family. Has Jasnah gotten the hang of the Surge of Transportation yet?”

Tien nodded slowly, though he found it strange that Dalinar seemed so…relaxed. Six months trapped here, cut off from his family. They’d all thought him dead, and here he was, acting like it was just another day in Kharbranth.

“Tien, you have to hurry,” Syl said, turning to look back toward the mountain of spheres. “The Oathgate’s running out of Stormlight. If you don’t go now, you’ll be stuck here.”

“Back?” The word sounded foreign on Dalinar’s lips. His smile had slipped away, replaced with something that looked more like wariness. “We can go back to the Physical Realm?”

Syl nodded. “But only if you leave _now_.”

Tien eyed the slope of spheres, frowning as another layer cascaded down to the ground. “How?”

She gave him a mysterious smile. “I can help with that.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Nothing,” she said, then shrank back, avoiding Tien’s eyes. “I just can’t come with you.”

“You...What?”

Syl cringed. “It’s very difficult for spren to manifest in the Physical Realm. Without a bond, I…”

“No.” Tien backed away. “No, you can’t.”

“I told you I would have to come back here eventually,” Syl said, softly. “I think…I think it’s time, Tien.”

“No!”

Tien’s voice echoed through the empty air, shrill and frail. Syl didn’t try to argue with him again, just stepped back and wrapped her arm around herself.

After a few seconds of silence, Dalinar cleared his throat. “Sylphrena. You’re Sylphrena, aren’t you?” He waited for her nod, his frown growing deeper. “You were bonded to Kaladin, when I left. What happened?”

“He’s dead,” Tien said, the words weighing in his chest.

Dalinar’s breath caught. “Tien, I—”

“It’s okay.” Tien sniffed, but forced a smile. He didn’t want to lose Syl, not yet, but he tried not to think about that. Tried to think, instead, about Dalinar. About Adolin and Renarin and the other Kholins, who thought he was dead. “We should go.”

Dalinar’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Your brother was a good man.”

“The best,” Tien said. He turned away, but Dalinar pulled him back, wrapping his arms around Tien's shoulders. For a moment, Tien let himself lean into the embrace.

Then he pushed away, and nodded to Syl. “I’m ready.”

She smiled, covered his hand with hers. “I’m glad I knew you, Tien. Kaladin would be proud.”

Blinking back tears, Tien turned toward the mountain of spheres and the faltering glow above it that marked the Oathgate. He took Dalinar’s arm.

Syl’s touch on his shoulder was feather-light, and then Tien was falling into the light.

* * *

 

He woke to shouts.

“Tien!”

“Oh, storms!”

“ _Father?_ ”

The world spun, bright sunlight stinging Tien’s eyes. He sat up, leaning on—somebody. His mind couldn’t put a name or a face with the gentle hands at his back and elbow. He leaned on them anyway, and tried to tell himself the water in his eyes was from the dry, hot dust that caked his skin and the ache in his shoulder from the landing.

“Are you all right?”

Tien peered up at the one who had spoken and blinked until he could make out Shallan’s face, paler than usual and frightened. The fear faded as Tien pulled back, nodded.

“I’m okay.”

Jasnah knelt beside him, pressing her hand to his forehead.

“You’re alive,” he said, which might have been a silly thing to be surprised over, but his thoughts were still sluggish and he was too relieved to care.

Amusement showed in Jasnah’s violet eyes, but she smiled. “Quite. I only left to take Amaram’s fabrial where it couldn’t turn Kharbranth into another Shattered Plains.”

The reminder of the fight, of Amaram's fabrials, jolted Tien back to his senses and he scrambled to his feet, surveying the ruins of the Oathgate. It was in even worse shape than before, barely recognizable as anything but a hollow in the stone. A few bits of metal glinted in the sun.Tien doubted it would be active again anytime soon.

Amaram lay nearby, slack-faced with shock. He glanced furtively toward the path down into Kharbranth, but only until Jasnah returned to stand guard over him.

Farther from the ruined Oathgate, Adolin and Renarin stood with Dalinar, conversing in low tones. Adolin had removed a gauntlet to swipe at teary eyes. Dalinar rested a hand on Renarin’s shoulder, and Renarin placed his own hand atop it, squeezing as though to reassure himself that this was not a dream.

Tien smiled, throat tight, and turned to look out over Kharbranth. A few windspren still danced in the dusty air over the Oathgate, shreds of light and clusters of leaves that twirled and laughed and chased each other through the air.

 _Kaladin would be proud,_ Syl had said. Tien hoped she was right. He hoped that somewhere, Kaladin was watching him and smiling.

His vision swam with tears, with the fresh loss of Syl over the top of Kaladin's death. With the sound of Dalinar's voice in his ears, and Renarin's quiet laughter. That, at least, he had done right. That, at least, he knew would have made Kaladin proud.

The windspren dispersed, bored now that the Oathgate lay quiet and ruined. Only one remained, wandering down and winding through Tien's hair.

He closed his eyes, turning his face toward the breeze. _I'm glad I knew you, too, Syl._


	4. Epilogue: Bridgemen

Two weeks later, Tien sat on a rooftop overlooking the ruins of Sadeas’s mansion. It felt strange to be so high without the familiar weight of the gravitation fabrial on his arm. Even knowing he no longer needed it, he still felt naked. Rubbing the bare skin of his wrist, he watched the furor of activity below.

Sadeas had been, briefly, happy to see Dalinar alive. Within an hour, they fell into arguing that turned heated, and Dalinar had left. Six months away from home had left him craving more time with his family than waging political war.

Even with a man he still staunchly claimed as an ally.

Jasnah had been intrigued by Dalinar’s talk of a spren city. She’d spent so long researching the Oathgate, she hadn’t traveled much herself, and now that she knew what awaited her in Shadesmar, she had gone, leaving no promise of when she would return.

That left Shallan to manage her own studies, which meant she spent most days down at the docks sketching skyeels and sailors.

The Kholins had not asked Tien to leave; they had, in fact, gone to great lengths to make him feel welcome in their ongoing celebrations of Dalinar’s return. He went, sometimes, especially when Renarin asked him to, but there were times he still needed to be alone.

There were things he still needed to do.

Sadeas’s slaves packed up his belongings and loaded them onto carts to be hauled back to Kholinar. Tien felt sick watching them, half-starved, many marked by floggings and other punishments. They walked with heads down, eyes downcast. He'd returned to his old black market haunts, these last ten days, and had heard disturbing things.

Sadeas, it was said, was making a push toward the heart of the Shattered Plains. Publicly he claimed it was an effort to fulfill the abandoned Vengeance Pact and find justice for King Gavilar. The whispers said he had more selfish motives than that--not that it mattered. The one thing everyone agreed on was that he'd acquired a large number of slaves to carry his bridges into battle.

If it was half as bad as the rumors made it sound, Tien couldn't blame the slaves below for dragging their feet. Anything to buy them a few more minutes away from those death traps.

“Are you sure we were right to protect Sadeas?” he asked, anger burning in his chest as he watched them.

A wisp of silver mist twined around itself in the air before him, resolving into the figure of a young girl, translucent in shades of blue. Her dress dissolved into mist below her knees and her hair stirred in a wind Tien didn’t feel.

“I don’t know,” Syl said, pouting, her voice equal parts annoyed and confused. “I’ve told you, Tien, I don’t remember much from…before.”

Tien smiled, batting down the same frustration he saw in her. It was enough that she was here, though she hadn't been able to give him a clear answer on why or how.

 _You snuck a bond past me,_ was all she would say on the matter, and though she said it with her arms crossed, her voice said she was glad for whatever underhanded tricks he may have used to tie them together.

A breeze stirred Tien’s hair. He leaned into it, fingering the red-streaked white rock in his pocket. Things weren’t right—it would never be _right_ that Kaladin had died—but Tien was finding an awful lot of  _good_ these days.

“Kaladin would have done it,” Tien said. “I still believe that.”

Syl frowned, her brow furrowing so much Tien almost laughed. “Kaladin…I think I remember him.”

“Yeah?”

“A little.” She heaved a sigh, overly dramatic as always. “I don’t know. But I think if he would have done it, then it must be right.”

Tears welled in Tien’s eyes, and he laughed shakily. “I think you’re right.” He paused, watching the slaves. One of them, a one-armed man Tien thought was a Herdazian, stumbled under his load, and a broad-shouldered Horneater stepped up to help, ignoring the guards who yelled and reached for their whips.

Tien’s insides squirmed watching it.

“Kaladin would have saved them, too.”

Syl looked down at them, curiosity yielding to sadness. “Yes,” she said. “He would have.”

“Well, then.” Tien stood, brushing of his pants, and stepped up to the edge of the roof. His gut still squirmed at the drop, and he rubbed his bare arm again. One of these days, he would get used to not wearing that fabrial.

Tien breathed in Light from his spheres, welcoming the raging storm that stoked within him.

“I guess I’ll just have to pick up where Kaladin left off,” he said, and stepped out into empty air.


End file.
